The first thing that attracted me to the original Boondocks strip was the artwork. It reminded me very much of comic book work, in that it wasn't very cartoonish; it held to realistic expectations and downplayed the blasts and SFX. Unfortunately, after following the strip for a few months, it was the only thing I liked about it.
The Boondocks was nothing more than political activism, and pretty ethnocentric activism, at that -- just this side of outright racism on more than one occasion. And it was rarely funny -- very rarely. In fact, it was a really mixed bag all the way around: sometimes, there was a joke; sometimes there was a running storyline; a lot of times, it made absolutely no sense whatsoever; and all the times, there was an ethnocentric message which lacked any semblance of subtlety -- the surest sign of an outright provocateur.
But I really enjoy the cartoon, so I don't mind that the strip format is not returning. Not just because I have no intention of reading it, but because the format obviously didn't work for McGruder. The TV show actually is funny on a pretty regular basis and does use subtlety to impart its message -- and it turns out to be a message I actually agree with, for the most part. That message never registered in the strip format, ever.
This is a very important part of the artistic life that too few people really grasp: choosing one's format and medium. Just because you always wanted to do sequential art doesn't necessarily mean that the traditional comic format is the vehicle best suited for you, in particular.
There are all sorts of options available within the field: Storyboarding for movies and other sequential art work; animation; even traditional fine art. Don't limit yourself to experimenting with just the mediums and tools you use; try different formats and really explore all of your options before deciding that you have succeeded or failed in any one area.
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